Chapter 13 – Lesson One is to Breathe

The underworld boy started to stir.

I sat cross-legged on the floor, observing him. The morning sun cast long shadows through the cabin’s single window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. He groaned, a pathetic sound, and slowly pushed himself up on the cot. His eyes blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar wooden walls.

He looked around in a wild panic, his gaze finally landing on me.

“You… Who… Where am I?”

His voice was a weak, terrified rasp.

“Your new life.”

I stood up in a single, fluid motion. His eyes widened as he remembered the alley, the twig, the sharp blow to his neck. Good. Fear was a useful tool.

“And your first day of training has already begun.”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him off the cot. He was light as a bundle of sticks. He stumbled, his legs shaky and uncoordinated.

“Wait, training? Training for what?”

“To become less of a disgrace.”

I dragged him toward the door without another word. He dug his heels in, a laughable attempt at resistance. It was like a kitten trying to fight a wolf.

I pushed him outside.

The morning air on the mountain was crisp and perfect. It was a gift from the Great Master, saturated with the pure mana that flowed from the peak. It was the air of strength, of life.

The boy, Reiji, took one breath of it and immediately doubled over, coughing violently.

His body was rejecting the gift. His polluted lungs, so accustomed to the filth and weakness of the lower world, were spasming in protest. It was both pathetic and fascinating to watch.

“What… is… wrong… with this… air?”

He gasped the words between ragged coughs, his hands on his knees.

I pointed to a small wooden stool I had placed just outside the cabin door.

“Your first lesson. Sit. And breathe.”

He looked at me as if I were insane. His face was pale, and beads of sweat were already forming on his forehead.

“I can’t! It’s… It feels heavy. I can’t get enough in.”

“That is because you are weak.”

I stood with my arms crossed, observing his pathetic state. My master, Siegfried, wanted me to train him in the basics. And there was nothing more basic than this. If he could not conquer the air, he would never be worthy of taking a single step up the mountain.

“Your body is fighting the purity of this place. It clings to the corruption of your home. You must force it to accept the Master’s gift.”

“Gift? It feels like I’m drowning!”

He collapsed onto the stool, his chest heaving. His eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and confusion. He truly didn’t understand. The creatures of the lower world were so disconnected from the source of power that they couldn’t even recognize it. They breathed dead air their entire lives and thought it was normal.

“Lesson one. Inhale.”

He tried. He took a shuddering gasp, and it immediately turned into another fit of hacking coughs that shook his entire body.

“Exhale.”

The exhale came out as a pained wheeze. He looked up at me, his eyes pleading.

“Please… I need… water…”

“The air is all you need. Focus. Stop being so pathetic.”

He stared at me in disbelief. His expression clearly said he thought I was the cruelest person in existence. He had no idea what real cruelty was. He had never seen my master’s scars.

He tried to stand up, perhaps to make a run for it. It was a foolish, predictable impulse. He pushed himself off the stool, took one wobbly step, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

He crumpled to the ground in a heap.

I did not move to help him. This was part of the lesson. His body had to learn its new limits. His mind had to accept his own complete and utter weakness. Only from that point of absolute zero could he begin to be built into something useful.

He lay there on the dirt for a full minute, twitching. Eventually, he started to stir again, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees like a newborn fawn. He stayed there, panting, his forehead pressed against the cool earth.

This was the vessel the Master’s sword had chosen. This wheezing, fragile creature who was being defeated by the simple act of respiration. The Great Master’s wisdom was beyond my comprehension, but my faith remained unshaken. There was a purpose to this humiliation. A purpose for him, and perhaps a purpose for me. A lesson in patience.

Slowly, painfully, he crawled back to the stool. He pulled himself up onto it, his entire body trembling with the effort. He looked utterly defeated.

“I… I don’t understand.”

“There is nothing to understand. You are weak. The air is strong.”

I took a step closer, looming over him.

“Your task is to bridge that gap. Inhale the strength. Exhale the weakness. That is your only goal. Everything else is a distraction.”

He looked down at his own trembling hands, then back up at me. He closed his eyes and tried again, his face scrunched up in concentration. A tiny, shuddering breath went in. A slightly less shaky breath came out. Then another.

He was still coughing, still gasping, but there was a flicker of something new in his expression. Determination. A stubborn refusal to fail. The same refusal I had seen in the alley.

It was the only quality he had that wasn’t completely pathetic.

The sun climbed higher, reaching its peak in the sky. I stood there the entire time, unmoving, watching his struggle. It was the most boring and yet the most fundamental training I could imagine.

He did not faint again.

“That is enough for today.”

He opened his eyes, looking at me with shock.

“But… I didn’t do anything! I just sat here!”

“You survived.”

I turned and walked back toward the cabin door.

“For a creature of the underworld, that is a remarkable achievement. Your lesson is over.”

The first day of training was complete, and the boy hadn’t even managed to take ten proper breaths in a row.

This was going to take a very long time.