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POV: Arthur Snow
Qi.
It was everything. And yet, here, it was almost nothing.
Arthur sat cross-legged in the loft above the forge, sweat clinging to his skin despite the chill. His breath was slow, measured, and almost invisible in the cold air.
He opened his eyes.
"Ten days… and barely half a cycle completed."
His cultivation stalled like a blade dulled against stone. In Murim, even a mountain's breeze carried traces of qi. In this world? It was thin. Dry. Scarce. Like drawing water from cracked desert earth.
"This place is spiritually starved."
But he'd noticed something strange.
During his walks to the Godswood—when delivering blades to Ser Colm, or carrying reports from the Maester—his senses had tingled. Faint at first, then unmistakable.
"The air shifts near the weirwood."
The heart tree, with its bleeding eyes, pulsed faintly with something deeper. Not qi as he knew it—but something close. Ancient. Rooted in the land. Not living—but watching.
"Like a dormant spiritual vein... corrupted, maybe. But still useful."
He made plans to meditate there when time allowed.
But today wasn't for meditation.
The courtyard was packed.
A wooden circle had been drawn out in the training yard, and Stark retainers, guardsmen, and even some of the castle folk had gathered. Word had spread.
Arthur Snow was to spar.
His opponent: Ser Vayon Manderly, a seasoned knight and once second to Ser Colm.
"Try not to embarrass yourself," someone muttered from the crowd.
Arthur stepped into the circle without a word. He wore no armor—only simple leather and cloth, sleeves tied back.
Vayon smirked. "You sure, boy?"
Arthur nodded. "Begin when ready."
The knight didn't wait.
Steel blurred through the air.
Arthur didn't dodge. He stepped inside the arc of the blade, fist flashing forward with a parry that deflected the sword's flat just wide enough. His palm struck Vayon's shoulder—not with strength, but with precise, qi-imbued pressure.
The knight stumbled.
The crowd gasped.
Arthur flowed like water.
No wasted motion. No hesitation.
Vayon gritted his teeth and came again, this time faster, stronger. His strikes were clean—clearly a master of his art.
But Arthur was beyond art.
He was instinct honed in deathfields. He was the echo of Murim's chaos in a silent North.
And with a sidestep and an open-palm thrust, he knocked the knight's blade free.
It clattered to the dirt.
Vayon fell to one knee, eyes wide.
Silence.
Then a single voice—Brandon's, perhaps—whispered, "That wasn't swordsmanship. That was… something else."
Arthur offered his hand.
Vayon took it.
Respect passed between them without a word.
From the crowd, Benjen Stark stared hard.
High above, Maester Luwin watched from his tower. Not with suspicion—but curiosity.
He had seen how Arthur moved. The boy defied expectation. His body was strong, yes—but the way he reacted, flowed, adapted—those were not skills of a blacksmith's apprentice.
He made a note in his ledger.
"Arthur Snow. Possesses anomalous reflexes and unrecorded technique. Possibly trained under an unknown foreign doctrine. No knight's form, yet no peasant's luck either."
"Request access to older tomes. And perhaps… an extended teaching arrangement."
That night, Arthur returned to the Godswood. He sat beneath the heart tree, closed his eyes, and breathed in the dense, slow-flowing qi.
"I've plateaued," he thought grimly. "In Murim, I'd be mid-way through the Third Stage of Internal Mastery—Qi Vein Refinement. Here, I'm barely scraping the surface of that level. I haven't touched the Meridian Opening yet."
"No spirit beasts. No natural qi pools. And no martial sects to draw from."
Still, the Godswood had promise. The qi here was slow but pure—untouched by the chaos of human ambition. It reminded him faintly of ancient forest shrines where old beasts slept.
He placed a stone marker at the base of the heart tree—simple, carved with a single rune for "flow."
In Murim, such runes were used to mark places where qi moved freely and cleanly, where heaven and earth touched in quiet harmony. The Godswood, with its stillness and ancient air, reminded him of old cultivation groves hidden in mountain valleys. The air here was richer than the rest of Winterfell—almost like it breathed with him.
He had meditated in blood-soaked fields and on shattered cliffs, but this place... this felt alive.
The rune was a small thing. It wouldn't draw attention. Just a stone among roots. But to Arthur, it meant more. A grounding point. A channel. A whisper to the old world he came from.
He touched the marker once,
"Flow," he murmured. "Let this place breathe as I breathe."
"I'll cultivate here nightly. Slowly is still progress."