The city-state alliance Alpens established was called the Suinhor City-State Alliance, with Suinhor meaning “blood and fire.”

The name commemorated Alpens’s establishment of the city-state through blood and fire, while carrying deeper meaning.

Blood represented the deity who blessed Alpens, while fire represented the legacy of the City of Fire Protection.

Alpens was a charismatic figure, a natural commander and leader who could guide his followers and subordinates to victory.

Yet the art of governance eluded him.

Though he had established the Suinhor City-State Alliance, the daily administration of his subjects left him bewildered.

Yet Alpens possessed one good habit: he could recruit talented individuals he deemed worthy to help govern. He used his personal charisma to employ others in his service.

He appointed talented individuals who came to serve him to build the new city-state’s bureaucratic system, using them to govern the alliance and manage various complex affairs.

The early bureaucratic system of the city-state was quite simple, divided into three levels.

At the highest level was the royal family, meaning Alpens’s family.

Below them were the nobles, known as Oath-Takers for their divine pledges of loyalty to the king.

Finally came the officials, who managed cities and territories for the king, city lords, and territorial nobles.

Previously, officials had no complete system or titles, but Alpens divided them into different responsibilities, each handling distinct duties.

The palace, passed down since the time of the first Fire Guardian Alcina, was packed with people from inside to out today.

“Are they taking oaths today too?” Outside the palace, snake people wound their tails past pillars, gazing enviously inside.

“Why have so many people come?” Some snake people curiously observed the continuous stream of people entering the palace.

“So many scholars and craftsmen, what’s happening?” Some noticed the identities of certain individuals in the crowd.

Those entering the palace included followers who had already sworn allegiance to the Divine Blessed King, as well as powerful figures waiting to become new nobles.

In the royal palace, Alpens had gathered a group of scholars and technical craftsmen from various regions.

In this era, craftsmen were highly capable and important figures who possessed crucial knowledge and traditions.

Alpens had them stand in the center of the palace, questioning each about methods of governing, seeking their good counsel.

He called forward a middle-aged snake person who stood at the front.

“What can you contribute to our city-state?”

The middle-aged snake person held a leather book, a recording method favored by scholars who wrote text on toothed beast hide.

It was both portable and convenient for recording.

“Divine Blessed King.”

“I believe the king should build fortress cities along several other southern routes. Only this can prevent the northwestern tribes from invading again.”

“Peace and stability are what we and the city-state need most right now.”

Alpens already had some such plans, but having another propose them gave him better justification to send some people outward.

“Very good, so what can you do?”

The middle-aged snake person replied: “I am a scholar, most skilled in recording history and text.”

“I believe we should collect and recompile all snake people text and language. After so many generations, snake people language and expressions have undergone subtle changes, with many new words added. The text and language in many places have significant differences from other regions after being passed down.”

“Recompiling texts to establish official written and spoken language is absolutely necessary.”

Alpens ordered him to compile a book called the Suinhor Dictionary.

“If you can complete this well, I can appoint you as the Royal Court’s Recording Official.”

Recording Official was no minor position. In this era it was very prestigious and allowed constant access to the royal court.

The next snake person stepped forward, seeing how the previous one had indeed gained Alpens’s appointment, he too was excited and moved.

He spoke with glowing enthusiasm.

“Divine Blessed King!”

“My family specializes in harnessing the power of fire. I know how to smelt and cast bronze, while others in my family can fire pottery.”

“I believe the king should promote technology, expand workshops for smelting bronze and firing pottery.”

“Weapons are crucial, determining victory in war, and bronze vessels are needed even more for offerings to the deities.”

“And in daily life, we need large quantities of pottery.”

“Our family wishes to follow the Divine Blessed King and serve the king in firing pottery and smelting metal for generations to come.”

Alpens stood up, looking at him with great satisfaction.

“I am very pleased you have come to serve me.”

“Very good.”

“You may swear allegiance to me, become my follower, and henceforth manage the smelting and pottery workshops of the City of Fire Protection.”

Then Alpens announced a decree before everyone in the palace: “From today forward, all who possess technical skills may come to the royal palace to see me. If useful, I can reward them with wealth, official positions, or even the opportunity to become my followers.”

Alpens likely hadn’t imagined how greatly this decree would change the snake people’s situation.

Many technologies that would transform the city-state emerged because of this single policy.

The third person was a rather serious and taciturn individual who spoke directly upon approaching.

“We should compile a legal code.”

“The situation now is completely different from when the City of Fire Protection was established under First Fire Guardian Alcina. The original legal code is completely unsuitable for the Suinhor City-State Alliance.”

“We must revise it based on current circumstances and compile new laws.”

Alpens found this very reasonable and ordered him to make further revisions based on the City of Fire Protection’s laws.

If he could complete this task, he would be appointed as the city-state’s Law Enforcement Official.

Alpens received these scholars and skilled craftsmen one by one, appointing dozens of officials large and small, while also winning over many hearts.

He dispatched his followers to establish new cities in distant places, both developing land and guarding against the northwestern herding tribes’ potential southern advances.

He broadly promoted pottery firing and smelting techniques, fully transforming snake people civilization into a bronze age culture.

The Suinhor City-State entered a period of stability under Alpens, and the southern snake people entered another period of rapid development.

And all of this was observed by another great being in the sky above.

In the Dream Realm.

Yin Shen sat before the stained glass window, watching the changes in the snake people world.

Over these many years, the snake people population had grown incredibly vast, spread across coasts, jungles, and plains.

Their communities could be found beside both swamps and rivers.

They fished and hunted on sea islands, herded beasts on the plains, and cultivated fields on land.

This bountiful world greatly reduced their survival difficulties.

The only lack was that they were scattered across various regions, with no one and no force able to unite them.

Though their numbers had grown, now with Alpens establishing the Suinhor City-State, the southern snake people were finally truly united.

Their civilization had truly found its path.

They had genuinely transitioned from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, taking on the true appearance a civilization should have.

At least, the southern snake people groups showed such signs.

Yin Shen put down the mirror, suddenly looking outside the window.

His hand touched the openwork carvings on his chair, intricate and magnificent.

This was created by the Dream Spirit Hila’s miraculous power, in her favorite style.

“Perhaps it can begin.”

In another realm, the Ferryman drifted in a small boat through the dreaming star sea, his consciousness fading into a sleep-like state.

He lay quietly in the small boat, head tilted over the edge.

One strange dream after another passed by him, their mottled colored light projecting outward, falling upon the boat and the Ferryman’s body.

Under this light, the Ferryman’s body gradually became transparent.

Suddenly he floated upward.

Like a weightless transparent jellyfish slowly rising through seawater.

At this moment one could see that the Ferryman had no physical form. His transparent frame twisted continuously under the pull of starlight.

He was like a weightless mass of water, undulating with waves as he moved.

He was a complete spirit being.

Manifesting in the mortal world would cause him to dissipate quickly unless he found a vessel or retreated to the Dream Realm.

This was the limitation of Wisdom’s myth.

Not long after the Ferryman awakened, he automatically became a myth of Wisdom.

Or one could say, a fifth-rank Wisdom demigod.

Without Dream Sovereign Hila and God’s blessings, none of this would have been possible. Had Hila not set him upon the Path of Wisdom before departing, he would have been annihilated crossing the river of time.

He knew even better that his so-called power was insignificant before the three great beings on God’s Island.

The myth of Wisdom Ability possessed four unique powers.

【Incomplete Immortality: Myths of Wisdom possess unstable mythical forms that cannot exist in reality. They must have a reincarnation vessel, though this vessel cannot exist long due to your power. When it deteriorates, you must enter the next reincarnation.】

【Divine Technique Blessing: Myths of Wisdom can bestow their divine technique power upon others, allowing mortals to become their priests even without talent. However, those receiving divine techniques must meet corresponding conditions, or they will die from being unable to bear the power.】

【Source of Divine Power: You are the source of priests’ divine power. Each of your priests is a reincarnation vessel. You cannot truly die while any of your priests still live.】

【Gate of Desire: All power of Wisdom’s myth overflows from within to form a special gate, relating to your path to higher realms.】

Unlike the Little Person in the Bottle, he was a being who truly became myth through the Path of Wisdom. His flaws and hidden dangers were far fewer than the Little Person’s, and he was much harder to kill.

Once this true myth developed, not only would killing him be impossible, even forcing him into slumber would prove difficult.

The boat and the Ferryman grew increasingly distant.

He gradually disappeared into the star sea, diving deep within.

At this moment, the Ferryman suddenly awakened, his form instantly pulled back to the boat from the depths of the dreaming star sea.

He turned to look toward the divine shrine.

God was calling him.

“Is it… has my mission come?”

A smile spread across the Ferryman’s face, his eyes filled with anticipation and longing.

The Ferryman climbed the Pyramid Temple, entering the great hall.

God sat in Dream Sovereign Hila’s chair, backlit by sunlight through the window, His form unclear.

Light and shadow danced on the ground like waves on an endless sea.

The Ferryman knelt on the twisting shadows of the temple floor.

“God, I have come.”

Yin Shen examined the Ferryman, His gaze falling upon him.

The Ferryman’s origins were quite unusual. He was originally a Sun Cup, planted at the burial place of the poet Tito, but when someone disturbed Tito’s resting place, the seal was broken and he was washed into the sea.

Then, he gained wisdom by devouring Prince Weishi Hosen of the Volcano Kingdom, becoming the Cup of Desire.

The Dream Spirit Hila ignited his power, making him the Ferryman, but because he was bound by nightmares, he could only exist as a black shadow, dependent on the spirit’s dream egg.

Later, when King Henir died and returned to the dream star sea, their karmic ties were resolved, allowing him to truly gain a semi-human form.

He shared an inseparable connection with Weishi and Henir, yet was neither of them.

His birth was filled with story from every aspect.

God asked him: “Do you have a name?”

The Ferryman quickly replied: “My name is Iva.”

It meant desire.

This name was clearly self-chosen, but Yin Shen felt it unsuitable: “I see no desire in you, nor do I sense those intense emotions.”

Iva raised his head toward God, seeming to have words in his heart he wished to tell the supreme God Yinsai.

He was a myth of Wisdom, and his gaze was more the expansion of spirit than mere sight.

The moment he raised his head, his entire being froze.

His consciousness and spirit lost all sensation, scorched by directly viewing God’s true form. His spirit body burst into stardust, forming a vortex spinning within the temple.

The Ferryman felt his consciousness pulled into the vast, boundless starry sky, drawn into infinite darkness.

Frozen in place, he found himself trapped within the river of time.

Time stretched endlessly before him – a single instant expanding into millennia, into eternity itself.

As his consciousness began dispersing into eternal extinction, a voice pierced through time to reach him.

That voice traveled through time in superposition, catching up to the Ferryman’s consciousness and locking onto it.

The Ferryman recognized whose voice it was.

It was God Yinsai.

“Iva, your power has not yet reached the source. You cannot carelessly gaze upon my true existence and form.”

“When you were weak and looked upon me, you could not see truth, only being struck by appearances and losing memory.”

“But now you have become myth, you can see the afterglow of my projection upon the river of time, and so your consciousness disperses into eternal extinction.”

The Ferryman’s spirit body only then reconstituted itself from the stardust vortex, finally regaining his senses.

He prostrated himself immediately. “Forgive me, God, for my presumption.”

He could only bow his head and watch the ground as he answered, but one could see terror born in his emotions.

When falling into the abyss of eternity, he had even felt despair.

Yet after tasting these two flavors, the Ferryman found himself savoring them – these were emotional powers he had never felt before.

Taking advantage of this feeling, he hurriedly began to answer.

“God Yinsai!”

“I named myself Iva precisely because I had never felt the power of desire before. It is because I lack desire that I yearn for it.”

“I want to feel it.”

“I want to know what its power truly is, why it can make one feel alive, what kind of miraculous might it possesses.”

Yin Shen understood his meaning and confirmed his pursuit.

He was a myth on the path of desire.

Yin Shen nodded, asking no more.

He told Iva: “I called you here to give you a new mission.”

The Ferryman Iva had long awaited this: “Great Creator Yinsai!”

“What would You have me do?”

Yin Shen: “I hope you will journey to the mortal realm and plant wishes in mortal hearts.”

At the gates of God’s domain, the Ferryman stood silently.

The golden ship returned from afar, having patrolled the entire Dream Realm, returning laden with life’s dreams.

The Ferryman gently stroked the Divine Boat’s hull, his companion through countless years.

He watched it slowly enter the gates, passing into the star sea.

But he remained standing before the gates of God’s domain.

He was making final preparations.

His original form had already collapsed through the ages. Living in the Dream Realm, he hadn’t created a new form before.

His old form had died, becoming a seed.

With purpose in his heart, he cast this seed into the mortal realm.

A seed pierced through the light screen, suddenly appearing in the mortal world.

It fell from on high, penetrating clouds and sky.

Finally landing on an empty expanse of earth.

It took root in the soil, then slowly grew forth.

Before long, an extremely rare flower sprouted from the ground, with a dim black-silver cup, its whole form emanating strange light and power.

This was a Cup of Desire.

A mutation of the Sun Cup after being steeped in Wisdom’s divine blood.

The moment it truly matured, a being from another world occupied this body.

The Cup of Desire rapidly expanded, transforming into a strange man wearing a robe.

He had a flower’s lower body but a human head.

The man looked upon this world, his eyes showing bewilderment as he turned to observe his surroundings.

The world was so vast.

Earth connected to sky, forests to rivers, various colors blending together as if to completely submerge him.

He had been born here once, when his consciousness first formed.

He thought returning here would find familiar feelings in this world, but there were none.

He could see no trace of what once was in this world.

The era had changed, the world had changed, even species had changed.

He had meant to say, I have returned.

But now when it reached his lips, it could only become:

“I have come.”

The Ferryman’s robes danced as he floated toward the distance.

He passed over jungle forests, drifted over lakes and rivers.

Finally stopping when signs of civilization appeared on the horizon, he descended again to the ground.

Below lay Ruhe Beast Island, and in the distance, the realm of the snake people.

The Ferryman Iva gazed into the distance, walking step by step toward the snake people’s domain.

“It begins.”

“My mission.”