(Continental Faith Deep hum and Karmic Ascension)
The cultural ripples of the Solaris Declaration spread across the continent faster than a flying sword on a tailwind.
In thousands of towns and hamlets spanning eighty-one royal prefectures, the dread of impending war dissolved into an energetic celebration of ordinary life. Peasant families who had packed their iron cooking woks and meager grain sacks onto handcarts to flee into mountain caves unpacked their belongings. They swept their doorsteps and opened their timber shutters to let in the sweet spring air. Blacksmiths threw away spear-polishing grit, turning their fires toward horseshoe nails and garden trowels.
Yet alongside the return of peace came an unexpected and delightful folk phenomenon.
It began in the pottery workshops of Blue Clay Valley, thirty leagues south of Solaris. Inspired by the fifty-foot cloud-jade statue erected in the capital forum, a village potter named Master He shaped a small lump of fine river clay into a round, plump, squishy-looking ball. He applied a smooth turquoise glaze, scratched two cheerful crescent eyes into the clay. Then he baked it in his wood-fired kiln alongside everyday soup bowls.
He placed the little blue clay blob on his kitchen hearth beside the clay kettle, calling it a household guardian of peace and good broth.
