Two years passed in a flash.
Somewhere within the Erebus clan's ancestral land, within one of their most secure residences, a young boy excitedly got out of bed as his eyes held a form of vitality and sparkle only a youth could have.
Though it had only been two years since his birth, Orion had already grown plenty.
With mid length silver hair and eyes, he stood at a solid 40 inches tall, the average height of a four year old.
His genes had already started to kick in as his beauty and purity could only be described as otherworldly. No matter how picky one was, the only appropriate word to describe him was perfection.
"I wish time could go by faster. I wanna cultivate already!" Excitedly said Orion as he brushed his teeth and prepared himself for breakfast.
"You know it won't be easy as when you were an angel right?" Asked Vulkron telepathically.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"From what you told me, you weren't really cultivating. You were just refining the raw endless power you were born with."
"Eh, same difference. The harder it is, the more fun I'll have. It's a win no matter what."
"Why do you even wanna cultivate? You know death is a very real possibility within the ruthless cultivation world right? With your bloodlines, as soon as you awaken them, you'll be immortal so what's the point? Feels pointless to me."
"Oh my god, you and your antics. I said I'll cultivate and nothing can change that decision. If I die in the process then so be it. Wouldn't be the first time. Death is not an end, just a deviation."
"You'll see when you get older…" muttered Vulkron with a sigh, already used to his little brother's arrogance.
"You're acting as if I don't know how cruel the cultivation world is…" said Orion with a sneer.
Arguments like these happened nearly everyday between the two brothers. An inevitable cycle.
"Alright, let's head out-"
Just as Orion prepared to exit his room, something within his mind seemed to be switched on as the world around him instantly disappeared, only to be replaced by a landscape tinted of pink and purple.
"Well, it only took two years for your shitty luck to catch up to us…" uttered Vulkron as he materialised, giving a ride to Orion as they wandered around.
"You're always complaining… Do whales have periods or something…?" Orion asked, genuinely baffled by his brother's usual pessimism.
'Stay calm…stay calm…stay calm…' repeatedly recited Vulkron within his mind.
"Anyways, any idea as to what's going on here? Weirdly enough, I can't sense any ambient energy streams… it's as if we're in the void? No… even the void has fundamental essence nodes but here it feels like it's truly empty…" rapidly analysed Orion.
Though he was still a mortal and didn't possess any cultivation base, his days as a seraphim building worlds on end weren't wasted.
"When you were born, your soul displayed an unusually high dream affinity and caused a bunch of manifestations based on your memories to appear all over the world. There's a high chance this place is related to that since I sense a huge amount of spiritual and dream force. I think we're in the dream world."
"Huh? I thought those manifestations were only the result of my powerful soul."
"Are you dumb? One begets the other. You can't have a powerful soul without having a high dream affinity and you can't have a high dream affinity without having a powerful soul."
"Anyway, if I had to expand upon my previous theory I'd say you forming the preliminary form of your dao heart undid a bit of the seal and allowed whatever is happening to happen."
"Dao heart? When the hell did I- Oh! That was enough to form a dao heart?" Answered Orion as he reminisced upon the words he uttered earlier when talking about how much he wanted to cultivate.
Having now understood part of what was happening, Orion's face contorted into a frown as he looked around.
'So I subconsciously formed a gate to this place by unsealing a fraction of my dream affinity. Using my past experiences as a base, I can assume that this is a form of trial placed down by the will of this place otherwise I would've already died. I'm not nearly strong enough to mingle with concepts relating to dreams yet.' He quickly thought.
"I wanna try something. Open a void hole."
Without responding, Vulkron's humongous body shone with an azure light as their surroundings distorted akin to a crumpled sheet of paper.
The world around them kept distorting until an obsidian passage formed in front of them.
Vulkron traversed the void hole he had just formed feeling no resistance whatsoever as he raised one of his non-existent eyebrows in surprise.
"That easy?"
"So I was right, this is a trial."
"Right about what-"
Before he could finish his words, the dark void around them shifted as the previously amethyst and pink landscape they had previously been in returned.
"We're back? What happened?" Said Vulkron in shock.
"The first trial: Control."
"Dream essence in itself doesn't seem to have any fundamental runes or runic language so I'm gonna assume it's a form of parasitic power. Uses other rune languages then corrupts it to bring its desired effect. Which makes sense considering dream essence is known to be able to alter reality."
"Second assumption I'll make is that…"
As Orion endlessly rambled, Vulkron kept quiet as a smile bloomed onto his face.
'Nerd…'
Closing his eyes, Orion dug into the well of knowledge he had accumulated over his three lives as he outstretched his hand.
"With all these factors considered, I think the solution is to create a runic dream language unique to me."
In front of his palm, twelve multicoloured runes appeared before they arranged themselves in a circular manner, forming a spell circle.
As Orion opened his eyes, the runes seemed to melt with the world around them as they overrode all existing runic systems.
He was now in control.
"I see… the place wasn't empty. It was just made of a language that hadn't been created yet…mine. So it's a paradoxical space?"
As Orion further theorised, Vulkron's pupils couldn't help but widen.