The world was blurry and quiet, a vague haze of shapes and sounds he couldn't fully grasp. Brown eyes blinked open, sharp despite the infant's body that felt foreign and weak.
He lay in a simple wooden crib inside a mud-walled hut somewhere in the Earth Kingdom — a place with no bending, no glory, just quiet survival.
A woman's soft voice echoed nearby, soothing and tired.
"Lee Wunshin," she said. His new name. A name to hide behind. A mask for now.
The boy did not answer — no one expected him to. But inside, his mind churned.
This body was weak. This life was simple. But the mind beneath? Always awake. Always planning.
Someday, I will shed this name — this shell. Someday, I will claim a name worthy of what I am. Something like… Ashen. Ashen Hellflame.
Yes. That will be my name someday. A name that burns brighter than this dull, powerless life.
The god who sent me here wants me to burn in this hell? I will rise from these ashes, and they will remember the fire.
For now, he was Lee Wunshin. Just a baby. But even a baby can begin to observe. To learn. To prepare.
While the village outside moved in its predictable rhythm of hardship and war, the boy's thoughts reached beyond. He focused his breath, as best as his infant lungs would allow, experimenting with something faint but familiar — meditation.
No one watched closely. No one cared.
They saw only a smiling child, quick to observe, quiet in his own way.
But inside, he felt something else — the faintest pulse of energy flowing through the earth, through the air. A current no one else could see.
He tried to reach it.
Slowly, clumsily, he learned to breathe with purpose, to quiet the world.
He felt the small stirrings of power — not bending, not fire or water, but something deeper. The raw pulse of life energy, of spirit.
Even now, trapped in this fragile form, the game had already begun.
Ashen Hellflame was watching. Waiting.
And when the time came, he would rise.
By the age of one, his control over breath had become rhythmic, deliberate. While most infants cried and flailed for attention, Lee was calm. Too calm. Nurses whispered that he was strange — always watching, always listening.
That was fine. Let them underestimate him.
He had begun focusing on internal awareness, mapping the sensations in his body, trying to understand how the smallest shifts in emotion or breath changed the way he felt energy stir beneath the skin.
He wasn't ready to manipulate it — not yet — but he could feel it. That was the first step. Awareness.
Between naps, meals, and meaningless cooing from parents, he meditated in silence.
Time passed.
At two years old, he had memorized the layout of the house. The routines of his mother and father. The way the sun cast shadows across the room depending on the season. The smells of damp earth, of rice cooking over a stove, of worn leather boots returning from the field.
Every detail, stored.
He mimicked emotions when required. Smiled when smiled at. Laughed when tickled. But always, always thinking.
By three, he had begun subtle breath control. Lengthening exhalations. Shortening inhales. Creating rhythms of calm, focus, or alertness depending on the goal. The body responded. Sleep became optional. Fatigue dulled.
The spirit, slowly, opened.
His parents began to think of him as a genius — a sweet, quiet prodigy who needed little and smiled often.
Perfect.
By four, he had glimpsed something else during deep meditation. A pull — faint, distant, like a breeze under the ocean. A realm behind the realm. The Spirit World.
He couldn't reach it yet. But he knew it was there. And more importantly, he knew he could reach it. It was only a matter of time.
At five, the visions began.
Flickers of movement in the corners of his eyes. Shadows in the trees that vanished when others looked. Faint whispers in dreams, pulling him toward places he didn't yet understand.
He had never spoken a word about them.
Let the world think him gifted but normal.
Because by six, the real training would begin.