Two years. Two years breathing as if his life depended on it. Because it did.
Between three and five, time passed in a routine that would have driven anyone else mad. But for me, it was the only thing that made sense.
Every night. Without exception. When Eunbi and Minjun were asleep. When the village was silent. When even the dogs stopped barking. I slipped out of my futon. Put on my clothes. And joined Mansoo in the barn.
The first year had been torture. Pure and simple. My body refused to cooperate. My circuits were too narrow, too immature, and too goddamn young to handle the flow of Gi I was trying to force through them. Every session ended with cramps. Nausea. Sometimes nosebleeds.
Mansoo watched. Corrected my posture. Adjusted my breathing. And repeated, again and again: "Patience. The Way of the Breath doesn't rush. It's a river, not a torrent."
But my body didn't listen to those poetic metaphors. My body remembered. Even if my head had forgotten. My muscles already knew the movements. My lungs already knew how to draw Gi from the air. My Danjeon pulsed with a familiarity that made no sense for a four-year-old child.
Mansoo saw it. And it worried him.
"You're progressing too fast," he would say. Not as a compliment. As a diagnosis.
"Is that bad?"
"It's dangerous."
But he continued teaching me. Because the alternative—letting me figure it out on my own, without guidance—was worse. Self-taught cultivators often ended up mutilated. Or insane. Or dead. Misdirected Gi didn't forgive.
So he taught me. Patiently. Methodically. As if training a soldier for a war that hadn't yet arrived.
And I learned.
During the day, I played the role. The five-year-old child. Calm. Strange but manageable. I helped Eunbi with household chores. I watched Minjun when she had to go out. I talked just enough to other village children to not be completely isolated.
Minjun had grown. From a drooling baby to a turbulent toddler who ran everywhere, tripping over his own feet. He followed me. Constantly. Like a noisy, clingy shadow.
"Hyeon-hyung! Look!"
"Hyeon-hyung! Play with me!"
"Hyeon-hyung! Why are you so serious?"
Hyung. Big brother. The word still echoed strangely. Reminded me of that other voice. That other hand. But over time, I had... gotten used to it? No. Not used to. Resigned. Accepted that this role was mine now.
And maybe—just maybe—Minjun deserved a big brother who pretended to be normal. Who showed him how to climb trees? Who caught him when he fell? Who didn't let him down like I had let down...
No. Don't think about that.
At night, I became something else. In the barn. With Mansoo. There, I was what I had always been. A warrior. Incomplete. Broken. But rebuilding. Fragment by fragment. Breath by breath.
And that morning—that particular morning when autumn was beginning to give way to cold—something changed.
. . .
"Again."
The word cracked in the cold air of the barn. Mansoo stood three meters away, arms crossed, his breath visible in the gray light of dawn filtering through the planks.
I was in position. Legs apart. Knees bent. Back straight. Arms at my sides. The Rock Form. The first of the four basic forms Mansoo had taught me.
"Breathe. Find the Gi. Anchor it in your Danjeon."
I inhaled. Slowly. Deeply. The air came in—cold, biting, carrying that smell of hay and damp wood the barn always had. But beneath the ordinary air, something else. Gi. That invisible energy flowing through all living things.
I felt it enter. Warm despite the cold. Vibrant. Alive. It descended into my lungs. Dispersed. Sought the path to my center.
My Danjeon pulsed. That warm point three fingers below my navel that had become as familiar as my own heart. The Gi accumulated there. Swirled. Waited.
"Now, push. Not hard. Just... guide it. Let it follow the meridians toward your legs. Feel the connection with the earth."
I exhaled. Gently. And as I did, I visualized. Gi is leaving my Danjeon. Descending. Following those invisible paths—the meridians—that ran through my body like an underground river. Toward my thighs. My calves. My feet.
The connection was established.
Subtle. Barely perceptible. But there. My feet against the packed dirt floor no longer simply rested. They... anchored. As if invisible roots had grown. Not physically. But energetically. The Gi in my body was communicating with the Gi in the earth.
The Rock Form. Stillness. Stability. The foundation of everything.
"Good," said Mansoo. His voice carried that rare note—almost satisfaction. "Hold. Ten breaths."
I held. One breath. Two. Three.
At five, my legs began to tremble. Not from muscle fatigue. From energetic tension. The Gi was circulating, but my circuits protested. Too narrow. Too young. Like trying to push a river through a stream.
Seven. Eight.
The burning began. In my thighs. Rising toward my Danjeon. Not painful. Not yet. Just... present. A warning.
Nine.
My hands clenched. Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the cold.
Ten.
I released. The Gi flowed back. Returned to my center. The connection cut. My legs nearly buckled, but I held on.
"Better," said Mansoo, approaching. "Much better. Six months ago, you only lasted four breaths."
Six months. To gain six additional breaths. At this rate, it would take me...
No. Don't calculate. That just drove you crazy.
"The Rock Form is the base," Mansoo continued. "Before you can move, you must know how to stay still. Before you can strike, you must know how to root your weight. Everything starts there."
He demonstrated. Got into position. And even without visualizing his Gi—even without that sixth sense I had developed—I saw it. The way he stood. Not like a man. Like a mountain. Something you couldn't move. Couldn't shake.
"Do you see the difference?"
"Yes."
"What difference?"
I searched for the words. "You... you're not holding. You are. As if the form wasn't something you do but something you are."
Mansoo smiled. Sad. Knowing. "That's because I've practiced it for twenty years. One day, you too will be the form. But not yet."
He straightened up. Walked to the corner where he kept a water gourd. Drank. Offered it to me.
I drank. The water was cold. Welcome. My throat was dry from the effort of concentration.
"You're progressing well," he said. And before I could respond, he added, "Too well."
The compliment and accusation in the same sentence. Typical.
"You're five years old, Hyeon. Five. Most children don't even start feeling Gi until seven or eight. And even then, it takes them months. Years sometimes. You?" He shook his head. "You felt it in a few minutes the first time. You've mastered the Rock Form when your body should be incapable of handling the flow."
"Is that my fault?"
"No." He sat down on a wooden crate. He gestured for me to join him. "It's nobody's fault. Or maybe it's the fault of the gods who brought you back to this world. But the result is the same. You're a cursed prodigy."
"Cursed prodigy?"
"A genius who advances too fast. Who burns through stages. Martial arts has a bloody history with these people. They shine. Bright. Fast. Then they burn out. Because they push too hard. Because their bodies can't keep up. Because they forget that cultivation isn't a race."
He put a hand on my shoulder. Heavy. Firm.
"I don't want you to become that. A talented corpse. A tragic legend. So we're going to slow down."
"Slow down?"
"We stick to the forms. Just the forms. No breakthrough attempts. No trying to circulate Gi faster. Just... repetition. Consolidation. Let your body grow before we ask for more."
I didn't respond immediately. Because he was right. Objectively. Logically. Rationally. Pushing too hard, too fast, was asking to be broken.
But.
But Serin was waiting. Somewhere in the South. In the Dragon City. And every day I spent here, in this lost village, was another day where she... what? Forgot me? Married someone else? Died?
I didn't know. I didn't even remember our relationship. But the certainty was there. Absolutely. Overwhelming. I had to find her. And for that, I had to become strong. As quickly as possible.
"Okay," I lied.
Mansoo looked at me for a long time. His eyes searching for something. Confirmation? A promise? He didn't find it.
"You lie badly for a five-year-old," he said finally.
"I'm not lying."
"Of course you are." He sighed. "But I can't tie you up. I can't stop you from training when I'm not there. All I can do is give you the tools to not accidentally kill yourself."
He stood up. "So we continue. But carefully. Do you hear me? Carefully."
. . .
That evening, alone in my room, I couldn't sleep. The morning's training still echoed in my body. Gi circulated—slowly, gently, but undeniably present. Like a low-intensity electric current running through my meridians.
Mansoo had said to slow down. To consolidate. To wait.
But waiting had never been my strong suit. Even in this life where I remembered nothing, something in me refused patience. Demanded progress. Now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now.
I got up. Silently. Mansoo and Eunbi were asleep in the next room. Minjun was snoring softly in his corner—that kid could sleep through an apocalypse.
I went out. Not toward the barn. Toward the yard. Toward the open space under the stars.
The night air was glacial. My breath formed clouds. My bare feet on the frozen earth should have hurt. But I barely felt the cold. Because the GI in my body generated its own heat.
I got into position. The Rock Form. Not because Mansoo had ordered me to. Because my body knew it. Because it was natural.
Breathing. Slow. Deep. Gi entered. More easily than this morning. As if repetition had widened the paths. Made the flow more fluid.
It descended toward my Danjeon. Accumulated. Swirled. And as it swirled, I felt... something. A pressure. Not painful. Not unpleasant. Just... there. As if something wanted to come out. Expand. Explode.
The First Breath.
I knew it without being told. Without Mansoo having explained. Because my body remembered. This sensation. This pressure. It was the threshold. The first true awakening of the Breath's power.
Don't do it," screamed the rational part of my brain. Mansoo said to wait. Your body isn't ready. You'll hurt yourself.
But the irrational part—the part that carried the scars of a past life, that remembered being powerful, that refused this infantile weakness—that part wasn't listening.
I pushed.
The Gi in my Danjeon exploded. Not literally. But energetically. It burst out. Spread through all my meridians at once. Not gently. Not like a river. Like a flood.
My entire body lit up.
No. Didn't light up. Not visually. But I felt it. Every muscle. Every bone. Every nerve. All connected. All powered. All... awakened.
Power struck like a wave. My senses sharpened. I could hear the wind in the trees a hundred meters away. Feel the vibrations of the ground beneath my feet. See details in the darkness as if the moon were shining ten times brighter.
My body was lighter. Stronger. Not physically different. But optimized. As if every cell were functioning at a hundred percent capacity instead of the usual miserable thirty percent.
The First Breath. The basic awakening. The point where an ordinary practitioner became a true martial artist.
Five years old. I was five goddamn years old, and I had just achieved what most people didn't achieve until fifteen or twenty. If they ever achieved it.
And during those few seconds—three? four? five maybe?—during those few glorious seconds, I felt... whole. As if I had recovered a piece of myself. Not all of it. Far from it. But enough to remind me of what I had been.
Then it cut out.
Not gradually. Brutally. As if someone had shut off a faucet. The Gi flowed back. Returned to my Danjeon. And in its wake...
Pain.
My legs buckled. I fell forward. My hands caught the ground just in time to keep my face from hitting it. My stomach revolted. Nausea rose like a tide. I vomited. Violently. The evening meal came back up in an acidic, burning stream.
My muscles contracted. Cramps. Everywhere. Thighs. Calves. Back. Even my hands clenched into useless claws.
And my nose. Hot. Wet. I touched. My fingers came back red. Blood.
Damn.
I stayed there. On all fours. Drooling and bleeding like a wounded animal. Trembling. The cold was biting now that the GI's warmth was gone.
"Hyeon?"
Mansoo's voice. Soft. Tired. Resigned.
I looked up. He stood in the doorway. Bare-chested. Pants hastily thrown on. He must have heard me. Or sensed. Or just know that I would do exactly what he had told me not to do.
He approached. Crouched down. Examined my face. Saw the blood. Sighed.
"You're as stubborn as you are stupid," he said. But his voice wasn't angry. Just... weary.
He lifted me. As if I weighed nothing. Carried me toward the house.
"How long?" he asked.
"Five seconds," I murmured. My voice was hoarse. Broken.
"Five seconds of first breath at five years old." He laughed. Joylessly. "The gods really do have a perverse sense of humor."
He laid me on my futon. Wiped my face with a wet cloth. The blood disappeared in pink streaks.
"You're going to hurt tomorrow. A lot. Your circuits are forced. You have micro-tears all over your meridians. They'll heal. But it's going to be unpleasant."
"It was worth it."
"No." He looked me straight in the eyes. "It wasn't worth it. Because five seconds won't change anything. You can't fight with that. You can't travel with that. All you've gained is proof that you're capable of destroying yourself through impatience."
He stood up. Turned his back to me.
"But you won't listen to me anyway. So I might as well teach you how to do it without killing yourself."
He left. Closed the door gently behind him.
And I, lying in the dark, my body on fire with pain, smiled.
Because during those five seconds, I had felt what I had been.
And how much I had left to become again.
. . .
The First Breath had lasted five seconds. Five seconds where Hyeon had felt what he had been. And how much he had left to become again.