“Again,” his mother said softly. “Where does the Sunhollow Plateau sit on the map?”

Rae Jin leaned over the hand-drawn page. The geography book was old and cracked, the pages were yellowed and stitched together with care.

His hazelnut-brown hair — longer on the sides and falling below his ears — slipped forward as he bowed his head, hiding the most striking thing about him:

Emerald-green eyes that no one in Lone Fang valley shared.

He traced a small finger over a block of mountains near the center sketched in faded ink.

“Here,“ he said. “Where the Sunheart Temple Sect lives.”

His mother smiled.

In the candlelight, her dark brown hair shimmered softly, and her own emerald eyes, identical to her son’s, glowed with warmth and intelligence.

A face still beautiful despite the hardship life had carved into it.

“Good. And what about these cliffs?”

He tapped his finger. “The Stormspire Cliffs,” he replied faster this time. “The Galecrest Sect’s home.”

He was only four, the book bigger than his chest — but he absorbed everything.

They sat side by side on the floor of their leaning hut, the candlelight trembling over the map of Valora. Outside, Fang Hollow howled with wind and distant drunken shouting from Lone Fang Sect warriors.

“There are eight great martial clans,” she continued, tapping each territory on the map.
“Skyfang in the highlands. Crimson Dragon in the volcanic range, Sunheart, Ghostmist, Ironbone, Galecrest, Black Venom, and…”

Her finger paused over their own valley.
“...Lone Fang.”

Rae Jin frowned. “Why are some lands rich and others poor?”

His mother’s smile dimmed slightly. “Because power doesn’t flow evenly,” she replied. “Those who hold it take more than they need.”

He stared at the map again, trying to understand. “Is that fair?”

“No,” she closed the book gently. “But it's the world we live in.”

In that small, crooked hut, his mother gave him more than love.

She gave him names, places, directions, knowledge no child of their status ever received.

“Rivers,” she whispered once, guiding his finger along a blue line, “are the veins of the land. Follow them, and you’ll always find people… or trouble.”

“And the capital?” he asked.

She pointed at a star near the center of the map.

“Valenreach. King Arcturus rules from here. He fears the clans as much as they pretend to serve him.”

“How do you know all this?” he asked, eyes wide.

She hesitated.

“I learned from the wrong people.” Then she smiled and closed the book. “Now I tell you, so you won’t be played by the world.”

He didn’t understand the meaning behind her words.

But he understood this:

His mother knew things — things her bruises and torn clothes couldn’t hide. Things her calloused palms hinted at, though she never spoke of her past.

Every morning, at dawn, when mist still clung to the trees, she made him sit cross-legged outside their hut.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered. “Breathe with the world.”

He didn’t know why he had to sit still while other children ran and shouted. But her voice made him obey.

“What are we doing?” he asked once.

“Listening,” she replied.

“To what?”

“To yourself. And everything else.”

He thought it was silly. But he loved her voice, so he didn’t argue.

He didn’t know these were the first steps of inner cultivation, the kind of training most children from richer families trained at his age.

He just knew that after those quiet mornings, his body felt lighter. His thoughts felt clearer.

His mother always seemed proud afterward.

On his fifth birthday, the hut felt colder than usual.

They had no bread.
No feast.
No friends.

Just a pot of thin soup and a scrap of bread.

Rae Jin didn’t expect anything else.

But his mother had something hidden behind her back.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered.

He obeyed.

He heard the rustle of cloth, the tiny scratch of flint and steel, then a glow pressed against his eyelids.

“Open them.”

She held out a simple wooden stick, its tip lit with a small flame like a lonely candle.

“For the bravest five-year-old I know, happy birthday, my dear Jin!” she said, smiling softly. “Make a wish.”

He stared at the little flame… then at her face — beautiful even beneath the bruises and the fatigue of hardship.

“I wish…” he hesitated.

He wanted to say, I wish you weren’t so tired.

But instead, he whispered:

“I wish I can stay with you forever.”

Something in her eyes broke for a moment, then smoothed over.

“That’s a good wish,” she murmured.

He blew out the flame.

Smoke drifted between them as she reached behind her back and pulled out a small handmade book.

The cover was pieced together from scraps of leather and cloth. Uneven pages, patched and sewn with care. Childlike drawings of mountains, rivers, and a lone figure beneath a vast sky.

“This one is just for you,” she said.

He held it carefully, afraid it might fall apart.

“What is it?”

“A story about a little seed,” she said. “One that grows in the wrong soil… but still reaches for the sun.”

He flipped through the pages, grinning at the simple drawings — a tiny sprout in cracked earth, a sapling bending in storms, roots clawing deep through stone.

He didn’t notice the strange patterns she had woven into the roots, the way certain shapes repeated between pages like a secret code.

He only saw a story his mother made, only for him.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“I love it,” he said, hugging it to his chest.

She watched him quietly, a thoughtful heaviness in her gaze — as if she carried an apology she refused to voice.

Instead, she placed a gentle hand on the book and said:

“This gift may be small… but one day, it will open a new world to you.”

As he focused on the drawings, he didn’t notice her expression.

Inside, his mother gave him knowledge, stories, and quiet strength.

Outside, the clan stripped him of everything.

Women, jealous of his mother's beauty, spit at them.

“Her again.”
“Bastard.”
“She should have been chased out long ago.”

Men shoved her out of the way at the well, muttering curses.

Some called her illegal, an outsider, a whore.

They called him worse.

The children copied their parents.

They mocked his clothes, his hut, and the fact he had no father. They shoved him in the mud, threw stones, and spat at his feet.

They learned quickly that if they insulted him alone, he would fight them.

And Rae Jin — small, bruised, and alone — fought better than any of them expected.

He wasn’t stronger or heavier—

But he was faster, sharper, and impossibly quick to learn their patterns.

One on one, he could knock boys his age flat.

So they stopped fighting him honestly.

They waited until his back was turned.
Until his hands were full.
Until he was outnumbered.

They came with sticks and jagged rocks.

Even adults slapped him if he so much as looked their way.

His mother held him at night, cleaning his bruises and cuts.

“Why don’t you ever fight back?” he burst out once, choking on frustration. “You let them hurt you. You let them call you things. Why?”

She brushed dirt from his cheek and smiled sadly.

“Because I know who I am,” she said.
“And one day… you’ll know who you are too.”

He didn’t agree — knowing who you are shouldn’t mean letting others walk over you.

And so, quietly, he vowed to fight back — for both of them.

The winter of his eighth year struck like a blade.

His mother’s cough returned.
Her steps weakened.
Her warmth faded.

One night, she beckoned him close.

Her hand cupped his cheek, trembling but gentle.

Her voice was soft, fragile, but strong in meaning:

“Listen, Jin… your roots are here,” as she gently touched his heart. “No matter where you go, they will follow…”

He clung to her hand as tears fell.

She brushed one away with her thumb.

“And no matter what the world tells you…
Never forget that you were meant to become something greater than the pain you’ve lived through.”

She pulled him into her arms — one last trembling embrace.

“Be brave, Jin…
The world is waiting for you.”

She never said goodbye.

But he felt it in the stillness of her fingers and the silence that followed.

At dawn, Rae Jin buried her behind their hut, beneath the tree where she taught him to breathe with the world.

He pressed his forehead to the cold earth and made a promise.

He would survive.

He would grow.

He would prove her words true.

He kept close two things:

The necklace she had given him the day before she collapsed,
and the torn picture book she gave him on his fifth birthday.

“For now, he was just Rae Jin — a boy alone in the cruel valley of Lone Fang.

But the world had no idea what this small boy would one day become.”