🌾 Chapter 1: Soil and Sky
The first thing Sylas felt… was warmth.
Not the warmth of battle-fire or sunstone forges. Not the sharp, sacred heat of divine weapons. This warmth was soft. Gentle. Like the sigh of a sleeping animal. Like a loaf of bread cooling on a windowsill.
The sky emperor—once feared across nations—had died in glory.
But here, he was alive in straw.
"So... this is life after death."
"I expected fire. Instead... I smell hay."
The scent of earth, old wood, and warm milk filled the air.
Something tiny brushed his face. A calloused finger. A human hand. A whisper.
"He's watching me, Mama! Look at his eyes!"
Sylas blinked.
He was swaddled in linen, tucked in a woven basket set beside a stone hearth.
Around him: laughter. The clatter of boots. The smell of soup. And the steady rhythm of an old man hammering wood.
He was in a farmhouse.
His limbs were stubby. His body, unbearably small.
He was a baby.
🧑🌾 The Family of Earth
Baron Aldric Varenthor sat beside the hearth with a wooden ladle in one hand and a sleeping chicken on his shoulder. His beard was streaked with gray, and his eyes carried the weight of a thousand storms weathered in silence.
"He's too quiet," Aldric said, though not with fear. "Like he's listening."
His wife, Lira, brushed her silver-blonde hair back and smiled. "He's just thinking. Aren't you, little sprout?"
Sylas said nothing. Could say nothing.
But he saw.
Eight figures hovered nearby—his siblings. Older. Taller. Glowing with the vibrancy of life.
Elandor, the sickly eldest, sat on a padded chair with a woolen blanket. He met Sylas's eyes and nodded slowly.
Maelis and Serra, the tall sisters, were arranging baskets of herbs.
Bran, the broad-shouldered brother, watched with arms crossed. He didn't trust anything too quiet.
Thira squinted at Sylas, already suspicious.
Elly, Jeren, and Linna peeked from behind a hanging quilt, whispering about his "shiny hair."
They were beautiful.
They were alive.
They were… his.
And for the first time in all his lives, the Emperor felt something terrifying:
Peace.
🌱 The Soil Whispers
The days passed slowly. The family named him Sylas, after a mythic farmer said to have tamed the wild winds with a scythe made of bark.
He could not speak, but he could feel.
He could feel the soil beneath the floorboards, rich with memory.
He could hear the cluck of chickens, and—somehow—understand their restlessness.
He watched how Maelis sang to her plants, and how the leaves responded. That was not normal. That was Spirit-Touched Earth.
"This land is old," Sylas realized one night, as the moonlight poured through the window.
"It remembers me. Not as I am... but as I was."
Each day, as Lira carried him from the coop to the orchard, from the herb beds to the pasture, the wind would pick up around them. The animals would quiet. The plants would turn ever-so-slightly.
They knew him.
🐣 A Chicken Bows
On the fifteenth day, something happened.
Lira was feeding the chickens near the coop. Sylas, swaddled in a sling against her chest, peered out at the feathered creatures squawking and scratching in the dirt.
One chicken—an old hen with grayish feathers—walked forward. Slowly. Cautiously.
It stopped in front of them.
It looked directly at Sylas.
And then—it bowed.
Not pecked. Not scratched. Bowed. Neck lowered. Wings tucked.
Lira gasped.
"Did… did she just…" she blinked, shaking her head. "Maybe I've been in the sun too long."
But Sylas knew better.
That was no chicken.
That was a spirit beast, bound to this land. A weak one, yes. But aware. A creature that recognized a sovereign soul.
"Even without my armies… the land still kneels."
"Then let the soil be my throne."
🌿 His First Choice
That night, a strange glow filled the corner of the nursery.
A single seed—carried in on the folds of Lira's robe—now sat glowing beside Sylas's cradle. It pulsed with faint warmth, like a heartbeat.
He reached toward it.
And the air around him shimmered.
A whisper stirred in his mind:
[World Seed Fragment Detected]
Spirit Farming Authority Recognized.
Do you wish to activate the Rootborn Path?
—YES / NO—
Sylas didn't hesitate.
YES.
The seed sank into the floor.
Roots spread beneath the house—unseen by all but one.
Sylas closed his eyes as a pulse of green light passed through him.
And the soil... remembered its Emperor.