The Power of Creation
Copyright© 2026 by Vasantrutu
Chapter 8: Surveillance
MIRA — POINT OF VIEW
I woke feeling strangely refreshed.
My body stretched on its own, joints popping softly as I yawned and pushed myself upright. The morning air was cool, crisp, carrying the scent of water and stone. Still half-asleep, I stepped out of the tent—
—and froze.
My eyes refused to understand what they were seeing.
Where the forest should have been, massive stone walls rose in a perfect circle around us. Towering keeps stood at measured distances, their surfaces smooth and seamless, as if the mountain itself had been carved and shaped by a god’s hand. The walls were thick, impossibly straight, crowned with battlements and platforms.
For a heartbeat, I was awed.
For the next, terror crawled up my spine.
My breath caught painfully. My knees weakened. My jaw slackened as a single thought echoed in my head:
This wasn’t here last night.
My gaze snapped toward Rowan.
I found him sitting cross-legged near the lake, perfectly still, eyes closed—meditating.
And then I screamed.
Roots—no, veins—of stone, compacted soil, raw metal, and strands of glowing energy stretched from the ground and the walls themselves, all converging into his small body. They pulsed faintly, alive, as though the land was breathing through him.
That was the last thing I remembered before darkness took me.
I came to with a pounding head and trembling limbs.
Cold realization hit me next.
I had wet myself.
Mortified, shaken, and still half-convinced I was trapped in a nightmare, I cleaned myself as quickly as I could. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. My heart refused to slow.
Once I had my composure—barely—I marched back toward Rowan.
He was still unconscious.
That somehow scared me even more.
“Rowan!” I shouted, grabbing his shoulders. No response.
So I slapped him.
Nothing.
Again.
Still nothing.
By the seventh slap, his body finally jerked, a weak groan escaping his lips. It took two more before his eyes focused, confusion clouding his face.
When he finally explained—explained—that this entire monstrosity had been created by accident, that he thought he was only building a model inside his spatial domain—
I slapped him again.
Hard.
Not out of anger.
Out of sheer, overwhelming fear and frustration.
Then I stormed off to find food before I either screamed or cried.
ROWAN — POINT OF VIEW
I woke to pain.
Sharp, stinging pain.
My world swam as my sister’s face hovered above me, her mouth moving rapidly. I could see her shouting, but the words refused to register. Everything felt distant—heavy—like waking from a dream far too deep.
Then another slap landed.
And suddenly, everything crashed back into me.
The island.
The mapping.
The wall.
The keeps.
My heart skipped.
What I had believed to be a projection—a controlled design within my spatial core—had manifested.
Not partially.
Not imperfectly.
But completely.
Reality itself had answered my thoughts.
When another slap struck my cheek, I finally understood her words.
“Rowan!” she yelled, eyes blazing. “You need to explain. How did you accomplish this fucking miracle in one night?”
So I did.
I told her everything.
About the meditation.
About the island.
About how I thought I was only planning—only preparing a reference for the future.
About how I never meant for any of it to cross the boundary into the real world.
She listened in silence.
Then she shook her head slowly.
And slapped me one more time.
“For scaring me half to death,” she muttered.
I didn’t argue.
Because looking at the towering walls, the keeps, the stone shaped with impossible precision—
I was scared too.
I didn’t dare meditate again.
Not immediately.
I simply couldn’t bring myself to will anything anymore. My body felt heavy, my mind overstimulated. I sat there, staring blankly at the colossal structures I had created without intention—walls, keeps, towers—each one standing as silent proof of what I had done unknowingly.
When Mira returned later, carrying today’s kill and still muttering under her breath, she stopped abruptly.
I followed her gaze and understood what had shocked her this time.
Another change.
Another addition I hadn’t consciously noticed before.
She stood there for a long moment, then slowly shook her head as if accepting that resisting this madness was pointless. Without another word, she turned back.
“Rowan,” she said flatly, “start the fire. I’ll dress the rabbit for our first meal.”
I obeyed without question.
We ate in silence.
Not the awkward kind—no, this silence was heavy, contemplative. She needed time. I could see it in her posture, in the way her eyes kept drifting back to the walls. When we finished eating, she finally spoke.
“I need some time alone,” she said quietly. “This shock ... it’s too much. I can’t think straight.”
She moved a short distance away and sat facing the lake, her back to me.
After watching her for a while, I took a slow breath and finally closed my eyes.
This time, the transition was instant.
I stood once more before the floating island.
But it was different now.
I could no longer act carelessly. I knew—with absolute certainty—that whatever I altered here would manifest in the real world. The boundary I had believed existed was gone.
Still ... my curiosity was stronger than my restraint.
I focused on one of the keeps.
The world responded.
The island zoomed inward, magnifying the keep until I could see every detail—every flaw. Missing elements became obvious immediately. There were no proper entry gates for the keeps themselves. No doors connecting the keeps to the walls. No secured exits from the internal stairwells.
I corrected that.
Using the same metal as the main gates—MIVSI, but in smaller quantities—I shaped reinforced doors suitable for keeps and internal passages. Not massive like the outer gates, but sturdy, efficient, and resilient. The same was done for the gatehouses above the four main entrances.
Once that was complete, my attention shifted naturally to offense.
Defense alone was never enough.
After long consideration, an image surfaced from my previous life—Chinese dragons.
I removed the plain stone support pillars beneath the ballista platforms and replaced them entirely. In their place rose dragons formed from MIVSI—coiled, powerful, mouths open as if ready to unleash destruction upon anyone who approached the wall without permission.
Fire-breathing would come later.
For now, structure mattered more.
The mountain answered my will.
Metal flowed from its depths, reforming in midair into MIVSI. Doors, frames, hinges—each piece assembled perfectly before vanishing and reappearing exactly where it belonged. One after another, they locked into place.
In total, one hundred and thirty-two small reinforced doors were created for the keeps—three per keep.
Then came the larger ones: double-leaf doors for the gatehouses above the four main gates.
When that task was complete, my focus shifted again.
The eyes.
Dragon eyes.
This time, there was no pull—only a response.
From a small opening in the mountain, something floated out.
A grain.
Perfectly round. Barely one millimeter in size.
I couldn’t see it with my physical eyes—but I felt it.
The moment it touched me, understanding bloomed in my mind.
Five grains combined created a small storage space, five by five feet.
Twenty grains formed a larger storage, twenty by twenty feet.
One hundred grains created a true spatial room, twenty by thirty feet—one the owner could physically enter at will.
Five hundred grains, when anchored to a location, granted constant surveillance—a persistent awareness of everything within range.
A camera, my mind supplied automatically—another relic of my previous life.
And then—
One thousand grains.
A portal anchor.
A fixed gateway between two points in space.
There were many other applications, but those discoveries would come later.
For now, I searched the mountain’s core and found additional gems—beautiful, radiant crystals meant not for function, but ornamentation. Purely aesthetic.
I turned my attention back to the mountain.
This time, I knew exactly what I was searching for.
Deep within the stone lay veins of red crystal, warm to the touch even through layers of rock. They resonated faintly—different from mana crystals, different from void sand. These were ornamental by nature, but strong enough to house something far more important.
I extracted them carefully.
One by one, the crystals floated free from the mountain, shedding stone like dust. I shaped them slowly, deliberately, carving each into the pattern of an eye—narrow, predatory, and unmistakably draconic.
When I finished counting, even I was stunned.
Sixteen large eyes, each meant for the massive dragon heads mounted on the main gates.
One thousand seven hundred and sixty small eyes, paired to form eight hundred and eighty Chinese dragons, each coiled beneath a ballista platform.
The wall no longer merely looked intimidating.
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