The owls knew of the Ninja clan. One day, one of their fishing boats was returned, but there was no wind. What they didn’t know was that this was the day Barr had been traveling through one of his underground tunnels that actually went beneath the water, on the shore of the continent. It was a tunnel he had created a long time ago.

  That started the legend, but it wasn’t until years later that the same fisherman always returned to the spot where he had been dropped off. There, some rocks were set up where the fisherman had prayed and left offerings—not much, just flowers and small plants—but still lit incense and gave thanks for his life.

  You might be wondering what type of owl these were, but imagine a human being, normal size, but melded with an owl. The whole turning the head thing was more human than owl. So, these were a bit more human than a normal owl, but not much more. Only some of the originals, the first to be melded between the owl species and humans, had true owl-like features. The descendants didn’t have many traits of owls, which is why there was a small community hidden away on the edges, where they fished, hunted, and scavenged. When Barr found them, it wasn’t exactly a smooth interaction, but to think there was a clan hiding out of fear didn’t faze Barr. He didn’t show many emotions—happiness and anger were just memories to him. But to see a child hungry and searching for food? That did strike him.

  Barr took care of them after a couple of hours. He brought boats, buildings, and underground passages, reconstructing whatever he could with his knowledge of pressure and materials. He lit torches and figured out why they were hiding: wolves had been hunting them. Within a night, the wolves were slaughtered.

  Barr stayed in the area, setting up small hunting areas for them and leaving cryptic notes in rock formations. He would sometimes leave a couple of tablets hidden around with basic information, like simple math. Every so often, he would check in on them. From then on, it was as if Barr was a friend checking in. Over time, they came to understand that when something major happened, it was probably Barr—or the god of the mountain, as they called him. To Barr, he was just a spirit.

  During his time with them, Barr created stones that could only move up and down, and only he could move them. One such stone was connected to giant mounted explosions. Barr had set one of the marbles in a circular path. When the air pressure from the explosion hit it, it spun. You might think that’s no big deal—just a marble spinning a few hundred times—but this marble was buried 100 feet underground, made of solid stone, and about nine feet in diameter. When it started, it spun at such high speed that it triggered another distant mechanism Barr had set up.

  These disks started spinning, which caused a metal pole connected to them to spin as well. What Barr had created above ground was essentially a tree made of metal, with branches meant to fly off as it reached high speed. At the very top, a light acted as a lighthouse. When it turned on, it would soon turn off, but it would shift to another light on the mountain. One by one, the mountain tops were lit up for a few minutes. This light, a shining beacon in the darkness, was Barr’s way of showing strength and independence. It was his message to the owl people, to remind them that even in darkness, there could be light.

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  For the owls, seeing the world lit up in such a way, day or night, was a profound change. The momentary difference in light made them realize something was about to change. They weren’t just on high alert—they were hunting. All 20,000 of them dove into the forest, hunting for an hour until the light went out. When they returned, they had more food than they had in 100 days. They celebrated with a feast, knowing that the mountain could provide again. It marked the start of a new generation.

  The elves lived deep in the forest, so deep that they could not see the mountains. But they had met Barr and knew him as a spirit. They didn’t fully understand what he was, but he had communicated with them so well that he had made a pact of friendship. One day, he saved some children from an animal and walked them back. He also levitated a stick, which caught their attention. From then on, Barr worked with them, making underground bunkers and hiding places for when trouble arose. During a raid by bandits, they were able to keep their friends and family safe, thanks to Barr’s intervention. To the elves, Barr was a spirit or guardian, someone they deeply respected.

  Before he left, Barr gifted them a stone tower. He warned them never to enter it or build inside of it.

  The day that the mountains exploded, the elder being drunk as usual, had been grabbed and yanked out of his tree house. brought down to the ground where he puked And literally, they just didn't even talk to him. They just grabbed his drunk **** and he was fighting back the whole time, yelling at them until they brought him up to look at the tower. Now, glistening in liquid metal and spewing fire out the top of it. The heat coming off of it was so immense that he was sober within seconds and started paying attention. The amount of. wealth literally just bubbling out of this was immense. and the smell coming off of his horrible. the fire after about five minutes stopped and the sound of cooling metal and other things. was heard for the next 48 hours. They had guarded this tower and now you could see gems and other things within the metals and within the obsidian they were going to take it down and start following it. This was a gift from the spirit. They were going to pass up this gift.

  What they didn't know was during bars travel past, he hit a sandbar and got stuck. He literally had to compress the entire sandbar. And when he compressed that sandbar, he found a river. So he started having fun underground. And then he saw the little kid getting hurt. And he was helping out. And what he didn't realize, he made a pretty extensive set of caverns So so he didn't screw up really badly. He started using certain areas there as compression sites and some as dump sites. And he started making it to the whole ground wouldn't collapse while in doing this, he reinforced it all. He also. cleaned so much of the sand away that he found veins of metal well. he's got this metal and he's got to make a pipe to send a signal. Might as well use the metal while 1000 kilometers of whatever random metal he found made into a pipe super heated just peed out random. metals and silica sands cooked to thousands and thousands of degrees. It was perfect. because that heat also solidified it and made it so that now. the back end of what was coming.