"This world does not wait for you to become strong. It only waits for you to be silent."
The last words of the old wandering master.
The sky looked like a wound yet to heal.
Reddish-purple, burned by the never-ending roar of Qi. The wind hissed through sharp stones, carrying the remnants of war cries from not long ago. Beneath that restless sky, a man walked slowly, one hand gripping a wooden staff, the other holding an old sack on his back.
His name was Heng Zhen.
Not a warrior. Not a leader.
He was just he said "someone who doesn't know where to go."
He once came from a small northern tribe, the Gu tribe, the makers of medicine, healers of wounds, and breath watchers. But his tribe was no more, burned by another tribe that had fallen into the madness of Chaosqi. Purple flames burned the night, and the healers could not save anyone when the body was destroyed not by wounds, but by Qi raging from within.
Heng Zhen survived, but not with power. He survived because no one considered him important. He held no weapon, did not know how to slash, and could not shout like other warriors.
But he remembered everything. Too clearly. Too calmly.
Five years had passed since that destruction.
Now he wandered from ruin to ruin, trying to help whoever was alive. But the further he walked, the more he saw a deep truth:
Chaos cannot be stopped by strength.
Chaosqi ran rampant, piercing the sky, seeping into blood. Tribes turned into hunters, and Heng Zhen's medicines only prolonged suffering. Every time he soothed one body, ten others were crushed by the storm.
Then, one night, Heng Zhen stood on a red rock peak, facing a vast empty valley.
He exhaled.
"Walking brings no answers."
"Fighting does not either."
"Maybe… it's time to stop."
He climbed down the rock, tracing a crevice untouched by any creature.
The sky above him was silent. The air grew heavy, but not oppressive.
He arrived at a narrow, quiet valley: no wind, no Qi sounds, just pale earth and still water. No life, but no death either. Silence.
He stuck his wooden staff into the ground. Removed his medicine sack.
Then sat down.
Back straight. Breath slow.
Not to meditate.
Not to fight.
Not to gain power.
Just… to be still.
"If I cannot save the world," he said softly, "then at least I will not add to its wounds."
Time passed. Days unknown. Years unknown.
The sky did not speak. The earth did not move.
But one thing began to change: in that stillness, Heng Zhen started to feel... a rhythm.
Not a sound, not a whisper. But a gentle vibration that did not force itself.
Like a breath not coming from him, but from the world itself.
And from the deepest point within his body,
something began to glow.
Not burning. Not exploding. But… flowing.
Qi, but not like the Qi he knew.
It did not tear, did not push, did not roar.
It simply was. Warming. Soothing.
That was the first Yuanqi.
Qi born not from desire, but from acceptance.
The cloudy sky stopped changing colors for the first time.
The earth no longer trembled.
And a wild beast, which usually howled at night, simply sat at a distance… silently.
In that unnamed valley,
the first human who did not chase power
had found the first Qi that did not destroy.
"The world only needs one person who truly does not resist,
for Qi to stop attacking."
Whispers of Yuanqi, Book of Dew, Word 1
"When one person stops polluting the world with desire,
the world responds with something incomprehensible to those who keep searching."
Notes from the Silent Valley, Year One
No one knew how long Heng Zhen sat there.
The sun rose and set, sometimes twice a day, sometimes not at all. The sky changed like a troubled soul, but above the valley, colors hung quietly. Never rain, never bright.
Yet the earth began to breathe.
At first, only tiny ants walked with a slow rhythm undisturbed by the ripples of Qi outside the valley.
Then pale grass began to grow from the rocks, not from the soil. And above it, dew appeared every night, without mist, without wind.
Heng Zhen did not know he had changed.
His hands, once trembling when touching wounds, were now steady.
His breath, once gasping from the suffering he continually witnessed, was now long and almost silent.
His soul began to have weight not heaviness, but depth.
He did not realize that his body had absorbed the first Yuanqi,
Qi that did not pull the world into itself, but made the world come closer.
The First Beast That Stopped Attacking
A Stone Wolf, a northern creature famed for claws that could tear iron, suddenly crossed the valley's border.
Usually, the creature would roar and rip apart anything that moved. But that night, it simply stood.
Its head bowed. Its eyes calm.
It approached Heng Zhen
no roar, no claw.
And before the silent man,
it lay down,
and slept.
The First Lost Human
Then came a Boy named Lu Wen.
He came from a distant tribe shattered by Chaosqi's struggle. Lost in flight, his body wounded, his breath uneven, his mind filled with anger and loss.
When he entered the valley, his breath stopped.
Not out of fear. But because he could not remember why he was angry.
Lu Wen tried to recall the name of his slain brother, the faces of his burned parents but all was shrouded in fog.
And from that fog,
he heard something.
Not a sound. But a vibration.
A vibration from within.
Yuanqi Answers
Lu Wen wept. Not from sadness, but because for the first time, his body did not want to fight.
He fainted near the stone where Heng Zhen sat.
Heng Zhen did not open his eyes, did not speak.
Yet the Yuanqi within him flowed outward — not like a wave, but like mist touching bone.
The boy's body healed slowly,
bones mended silently,
wounds faded.
And when Lu Wen opened his eyes the next day,
he asked,
"Is this a healing technique?"
"No," Heng Zhen answered without opening his eyes.
"This is… the silence accepted by the world."
"I do not heal you. The world simply stopped hurting you."
The Beginning of Change
In the following months, other creatures came:
Birds that did not sing, snakes that did not bite, even an old woman from the Southern tribe wandering without direction, following the scent of dew that had never existed before.
And one by one, they sat.
Not because they were commanded, but because they no longer wished to stand.
Outside the valley, Chaosqi still raged.
But inside the valley,
Yuanqi formed a subtle, invisible field.
Qi that grew not from domination,
but from the soul's resonance with the world.