Chapter 0 — The Beggar Who Preached to the Wind
Somewhere, in an era long devoured by the dust of ages, a bent man wandered barefoot through the wilderness.
His robes were colorless from the sun, frayed at the edges, held together by knots of reed and vine. His back was bowed as if carrying the weight of a mountain that no one else could see. His eyes—half-lidded, dimmed by time—held no trace of worldly ambition, only the silent clarity of a man who had once reached the summit of something vast and terrible, and had chosen to climb down.
He had no disciples. No throne. No shrine.
He was a beggar. He was a fool.
And yet… as he walked beneath the twilight sky, he spoke.
To no one.
To everyone.
"Nine Pillars," he said aloud, voice gravelly and dry like autumn wind.
"Nine wounds carved into the flesh of Heaven so that we mortals could climb out of the mud."
He paused by a dying tree, brushing its bark as though greeting an old comrade.
"Strength… that was the first."
"Before wisdom, before elegance. Strength—the defiance to say, I will not break today. That was where it began."
The wind stirred dust from the road. A crow croaked from a scorched branch.
"Ten years to hold a boulder. Ten years to throw a punch that doesn't snap your arm. Ten years to stand when the world kneels. And for what?"
"One step."
He chuckled, a soft sound like dry leaves falling.
"Then Flesh. Twenty years to harden skin, to bleed without tearing, to be beaten and not die. Ah… how many corpses littered that stage, I wonder?"
He walked on, slow and deliberate. Each step seemed to match the rhythm of the earth's ancient breath.
"Thirty for Muscle. Forty for Tendons. Fifty for Bone. You don't become stronger—you return to something buried. Beneath the weakness, beneath the fear, lies the beast that once hunted gods."
He knelt beside a stream that no longer flowed—just a line of cracked stone where water once sang.
"Sixty for the Organs. To beat the heart into a drum of war. To tame the lungs until breath became thunder. Do you know what happens when the stomach digests poison like fruit?"
"You stop fearing what others eat. You start eating what others fear."
No one replied. Not the rocks. Not the grass.
Still, he smiled and continued.
"Marrow. Blood. Meridian."
"Years become decades. Decades become centuries. You sacrifice your name, your home, your kin. All for a body that remembers what the world forgot."
He pointed to the horizon, where mountains towered like silent judges.
"And when you reach the Ninth Pillar… you will be an Emperor. Not of men, no. Of yourself. For who can govern a kingdom… if he has not mastered the empire of flesh and soul?"
A child once saw him and called him mad. The village women left no food at the gates. The dogs did not bark. The sky did not rain.
Still, the beggar wandered.
Still, he spoke.
"All things are refinement. To walk is training. To suffer is training. To endure… is enlightenment."
He turned his face to the clouds. The wind pulled at his robes like the breath of an old friend.
"The Martial Path is not power. It is not glory. It is remembering that this body… this cage of bone and blood… can become a bridge to the Divine."
He lowered his voice.
"But only if you're willing to burn."
When night came, he slept beneath a dead tree whose shadow stretched like a crooked hand.
Some say the world had already forgotten him.
Others say the world was just beginning to remember.
But the beggar with the ruined robes did not care. He had walked the Nine Pillars, and beyond. Now, he walked backward—down from the mountain of enlightenment, whispering truth to a deaf world.
And the Martial Path waited for another fool to hear it.