Chapter 0 — The Coil Beneath the Thundercloud
A Tale Told by the Old Monk of Junlai Temple
It was a night of cold rain and distant thunder when the young ones arrived, soaked, shivering, and too polite to ask for shelter but too inexperienced to hide that they needed it.
The old monk let them in. Fed them broth. Dried their clothes by the brazier.
And when the rain thickened into storm and sleep would not come easily, he told them this tale.
The old monk sat near the fire, cross-legged in robes patched with time, eyes soft and voice like falling water.
"Your backs ache. Your knuckles bleed. Your bones groan louder than the wind outside. That is how you know you're climbing the First Pillar properly."
The disciples chuckled nervously. One looked down at his bandaged palms. Another cracked his neck in agreement.
The old monk smiled.
"Let me tell you the tale of a student who was not a man. Not even a beast worth naming. Just a snake. Thin and unnoticed. The kind you'd step over without thought."
The fire crackled. A log split. Lightning flashed behind the rice-paper windows.
"This little garter snake lived in the woods below a mountain—perhaps even this one. It had no venom, no fangs to speak of. But it listened. Not to men, but to the wind, the rain, the stone. And it heard the voice of a beggar."
"That beggar sat beneath a crooked elm. He was mad, they said. But his madness was full of truth."
' You could climb the Nine Pillars,' the beggar told the snake. 'Even you, little coil.'
One of the disciples whispered, "A snake can't cultivate…"
The old monk raised a finger. "Ah. That's what everyone says. But the snake did not argue. It trained."
"For ten years, it crushed itself against stones. Slid upstream against the current. Bit tree trunks till its jaws bled. It grew hard, heavy. Strong. Not to kill—but to endure."
"At the end of ten winters, it stood—not upright, mind you—but with a presence. Birds gave it space. Foxes avoided its scent. It had climbed the First Pillar."
The youngest disciple's eyes sparkled.
"Did it keep going?"
The old monk chuckled.
"Oh yes. It shed its skin again and again, twenty times or more. Its flesh became armor. It grew longer, darker. Moved like coiled iron beneath the moon."
"Then muscle—tight as rope, fast as lightning. Then tendon—snapping across rivers like a whip."
"Eventually, its bones turned dense as steel. When lightning struck it one day, it lived."
The room fell quiet. Even the storm seemed to listen.
"Its organs changed. It drank poison and became immune. Slept beneath snow and did not shiver. Its breath carried qi."
"By then, villagers called it a wyrm. A spirit snake. It moved like the wind and cracked the ground when it struck."
He paused.
" Then it changed inward. Marrow that glowed like starlight. Blood that throbbed like thunder. Horns grew from its head. Limbs from its sides. Wings it did not need to fly."
"And when it climbed the final pillar—the one none of us here have even glimpsed…"
The old monk's eyes reflected the firelight.
"…it shed not just its skin, but its nature. No longer a serpent. No longer a beast. It became a dragon."
"The skies opened for it. Even Heaven made way."
"The beggar beneath the elm? He looked up and smiled."
The fire popped. Outside, rain softened to a gentle patter.
The disciples sat silent, the story coiled around them like incense smoke.
"So," the monk said finally, "when you think you are too weak, too small, too poor or too late… remember the little snake."
He looked at their hands—bruised and shaking.
"Strength Refinement is just the beginning. But every dragon begins as something that bleeds."
One of the disciples wiped his nose and grinned. Another stared hard at the fire, fists clenched in quiet resolve.
The old monk lay back, hands folded behind his head.
"Sleep well, young martial hearts. Tomorrow, the path towards heaven begins again."
And with that, the storm passed into silence.