Tianmu: Eyes of Illusion

Theme: Dreamworld • Legacy Awakening • Training Begins

Lucas Zhang dreamed again.

But this time, the dream didn't end.

He stood in a courtyard of faded stone and silent air. No wind. No birds. Just the creak of ancient wood and the whisper of bamboo leaves—though none moved.

It was a house he had only seen in old photos. His grandfather's ancestral home in Taiwan, burned down decades ago.

But now it stood whole again.

Alive in the realm of sleep.

He turned slowly, feet bare against cracked tiles. The sky was the color of ash, and the world hummed beneath the silence. Lucas felt… watched, not by eyes, but by memory itself.

Then he heard it.

A voice. Old Mandarin, soft and precise. Floating like incense through paper walls.

"醒了,也就入局了."

"To awaken... is to enter the game."

He followed the voice down a narrow hallway lined with scrolls. Symbols pulsed faintly from the walls — 八卦图, 五行线, swirling coils of yin-yang geometry that seemed to rearrange themselves when he wasn't looking.

At the far end of the hall, a screen door slid open by itself.

Beyond it sat a man in white robes, eyes closed in meditation, long hair bound by red silk thread. He looked barely older than Lucas — but something in the way he sat made him seem ancient.

On the floor before him: the same bronze mirror.

Except this one glowed softly with blue light, as if lit from within.

"你终于来了," the man said, eyes still closed.

"I wondered how many dreams it would take."

Lucas stepped forward, uncertain.

"Are you… my grandfather?" he asked, switching to Mandarin.

The man smiled faintly, eyes still shut. "No. But I taught him once. And I am here to teach you now."

He opened his eyes.

They were solid silver. No pupils. No whites.

Just… vision.

"I am called Tian Jian," the man said.

"Last bearer of the Eye before the bloodline went dormant."

"You, Zhang Lucai, have reawakened it."

Lucas stiffened. No one had called him by his Chinese name in years.

Tian Jian rose and gestured to the mirror.

"What you call illusion," he said, "is merely your mind brushing against the folds of reality. But it is raw. Untrained. Dangerous."

He tapped the mirror gently.

From its surface, ripples spread — forming symbols, shapes, and then... a second Lucas.

The doppelgänger turned and walked away.

"幻术不是表演."

"Illusion is not performance."

"It is perception warfare."

He motioned for Lucas to sit.

"When the Eye opens, you see what others deny: echoes, spirits, unfinished dreams. But the true skill is not in seeing—it is in choosing what others see."

A paper talisman floated into Tian Jian's hand. He pressed it to Lucas's forehead.

A sudden pressure filled Lucas's mind.

Then the visions began.

He was standing on a street. A car was coming.

Too fast.

A woman on the sidewalk screamed.

Lucas raised a hand — and reality cracked. For a moment, the car slid sideways, slowed, then blinked out like an overexposed photo. The woman vanished.

He blinked. He was back in the courtyard.

Sweating. Pale.

Tian Jian nodded.

"You altered her perception. Pulled her into a parallel path for two seconds."

"You mean… I saved her?"

"No," Tian Jian said calmly. "You made her believe she was saved. The mind accepted that belief. The body obeyed."

Lucas stared at his hands.

"That's messed up."

"That's illusion," the master said.

He stood, walking toward a large diagram drawn in the earth—a 八卦阵, perfectly etched with glowing threads of white energy.

"You have touched the First Gate. Sight."

He pointed to the second ring.

"Now, the Second: Weaving."

Tian Jian turned toward him one last time.

"Beware, Zhang Lucai. The Eye does not only reveal—it attracts."

"There are other things… other watchers… who sense when someone opens the Gate. They do not like being seen."

Lucas wanted to ask more.

But the courtyard dimmed.

The bamboo creaked.

The voice faded.

And the mirror on the floor cracked — not shattered, just a single, perfect fracture across the surface.

He awoke in his bed.

Sweating. Breathing fast.

The bronze mirror still sat on the table.

But now, at its center, was a thin, glowing crack that hadn't been there before.

And behind it, for just a moment, something looked back.

Next Chapter: The Price of Illusion

Lucas begins practicing the Tianmu technique—but each use takes a toll. As illusions grow stronger, nightmares begin bleeding into reality. And when an old friend starts seeing things too… Lucas realizes he might not be the only one paying the price.