This was the second ti Alex had heard about the Architect. The first ti around was when Shumi spoke to the Heavenly Beasts about their vow. The Architect, or more importantly, a design of hers was important to the vow in so way. Shumi hadn't managed to find out what that was, so Alex didn't know either.
Now, he couldn't help but wonder who she was.
"This was made entirely by the Architect?" Alex asked, looking at the massive palace. It wasn't always that he heard about people who were involved in making castles and palaces. What could it have been that the Architect had left behind for the Heavenly Beasts? So blueprint, maybe?
"All of it," Frostsilk said with a grand gesture. "She is known to have made only a handful of palaces and castles, so the fact that she made this one makes the castle one of a kind."
Alex nodded slowly, quite impressed. "What other creations of hers remain?" he asked. "Are there more in this continent?"
"No, this is the only one," Frostsilk said. "There is another one in the Second Continent. Well... there was one. But it's mostly destroyed now. Aside from that, all the other five palaces are in the Land of the Blessed Sun."
Alex raised his eyebrows, turning toward the White Tiger Patriarch as if looking for confirmation. The patriarch nodded, affirming the dragon's words.
"You have been to all four of the Heavenly Palaces, haven't you?" he asked. "They were all made by the Architect. There is also another such palace in the ocean southwest of the Fighting Island, made for a family of beasts in the past that no longer exist. Now, Inklight, the Squid Celestial, has taken over the palace and uses it as his own." Alex blinked in surprise. "Those were all made by a single beast?" he
asked. He couldn't imagine how incredibly talented soone had to be to accomplish so much. How co he hadn't known about this person before today?
"Is she still alive, Patriarch?" Pearl asked.
"Of course not. She died a long ti ago, from what we know," the patriarch said. "She lived during the days when our progenitors were alive, so it was truly a long ti ago."
"I see," Alex said, realizing that the Architect must've been alive during the ti when the world hadn't broken just yet. If that was the case, then she could only be dead multiple tis over.
Even a Heavenly Beast could only survive less than a million years with the advantage they got. Other beasts were much worse than that.
"I must say, there is no record of this Architect individual," Bai Jingshen said. "And I've read a decent amount of the records in the family."
"There is so record if you check about when the palace was established. But most of the record on her is buried deep in the family. Even I only learned about her species recently when I...," the patriarch paused, glancing toward Alex once before continuing, "when I had to search for sothing."
Alex raised an eyebrow. He realized the patriarch had been about to speak of when he had to look up information on the Sun God and the
Vows.
"Her species?" Bai Jingshen asked with raised eyebrows. "Is it sothing special?"
Frostsilk turned as well, growing rather curious. He wasn't aware of it himself, it seed.
"Yes, the records claim that she was of the species known as Jade Rabbits, which is said to be the closest thing this world has to the Moon Rabbit. And an early descendant at that, which made her
history traceable back to the Moon Rabbit in about four generations. I don't believe there is anyone else that we know of whose parentage can be traced back to another Primordial that quickly."
Frostsilk was quite genuinely surprised upon hearing that. "That's incredible. So she was the great-great-granddaughter of the Moon Rabbit, huh?"
The patriarch nodded.
Alex was sowhat surprised as well. While he had heard about descendants of Primordials, he hadn't yet known about any that were so close in the family tree.
"We have a few artifacts she made in our treasuries, but we didn't have that information," Frostsilk said. "Thank you for telling that."
"Artifacts?" Bai Jingshen turned. "She also made artifacts?"
The two Celestials laughed, and even the Black Tortoise Celestial joined in a second later.
"She didn't also make artifacts. She primarily made artifacts. The palaces she created were sothing she made later in her life. In actuality, she was an artifact master of great renown. She made incredible artifacts, but most of them are now lost to ti, destroyed or broken. There are a few still remaining, and we have them in our treasuries as well," the patriarch said.
"Why is she called the Architect if her original work was making artifacts?" Alex asked.
"Because history doesn't care what thing you did more of, but what you were famous for. Her fa as an artifact master was big, but not as big as her fa for making the palaces of the four great families of the Land of the Blessed Sun."
"Ah!" That made sense to Alex. He couldn't help but wonder what else she had made.
"Was she a sculptor by any chance? Or an artist?" he asked. "She
wasn't the one who drew those murals and sculptures, was she?"
The patriarch shook his head. "Of course not. She might have been talented, but she couldn't do everything. The sculptures and the murals were drawn by so other beast that I don't know about just
yet."
Alex wanted to learn more about the Architect, but he didn't know what questions to ask. He couldn't outright claim that he knew nothing about what the 'Architect's Design' was, as that would break the illusion that he had created as the Sun God. And he didn't want to
change that.
While he failed to keep the conversation going, the beasts moved on and walked toward the palace as more Winterborn Dragons ca out to greet them.
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