The currents pressed closer, brushing along his chest, fingers, and tiny toes. Han-woo's movements were still infantile—twitches, kicks, little flexes—but now they carried rhythm. When the shimmer coiled toward him, his hands opened and closed almost in reply, a primitive echo of the currents that danced above and around him.
A soft pulse thrummed beneath the floorboards, following the distant clatter of wood, faint shouts, and the muted clang of training in the courtyard. Somehow, though he did not understand, his tiny limbs mirrored the rhythm: a kick in time with the pulse, a curling of fingers against a faint tug in the air. He startled when it bent unexpectedly, then twitched instinctively again, almost reaching for it before recoiling.
Colors swirled around him, more vivid than ever before, spiraling toward and away, reacting to the faint echoes of his small, helpless motions. Each twitch seemed to call them closer, each flex of his hands pulled the shimmer slightly toward him. His infantile body could not yet guide or command, but the threads bent, subtle and pliant, toward the first hints of his intent—even if that intent was only instinctive.
His mother hummed again, adjusting his tiny form. The warmth of her care pressed gently, and the currents responded in tandem, folding softly around him. For a fleeting instant, it felt as if the shimmer acknowledged the pull inside him—something unformed, unnamed, yet undeniably alive.
Han-woo's chest rose sharply. Tiny muscles quivered as if learning the rhythm of a song he had never heard. The gray within him stirred, the shadow of his old self brushing against the infant body, clinging to the stirrings of awareness. Somewhere in that intersection of helplessness and sensation, the faintest spark ignited: a connection between him and the unseen forces shaping the room.
He could not understand. He could not control. But in the smallest, most primitive way, Han-woo had begun to respond. The currents bent, swirled, and followed the instinctive echoes of his infantile motions.
And though it was only the tiniest flutter, the first tremor of awareness, it was enough for a reader [1]to see that the first steps toward cultivation had begun.
The shimmer lingered, teasing, folding around him. The world beyond the crib pulsed with rhythms he could not yet name. And in his helpless, gray-bound mind, a single, unformed truth whispered: he was alive in a world that could bend to him—and he was beginning to reach back, even if only barely.
The currents swirled again, brushing his fragile limbs, pulsing softly around his chest and tiny fingers. But now, for the first time, Han-woo's half-dreaming mind began to notice—not consciously, not with words, but with something deeper: repetition.
The shimmer bent closer, recoiling slightly, then pulsing in the same rhythm as before. He twitched, kicked, and flexed almost automatically—and the colors, the threads of light, bent the same way every time.
A pattern.
He did not know the word. He could not name it. But a tiny, flickering part of him—part gray, part infant—recognized: this movement, this pulse, this response… it repeats.
Another sound drifted faintly from the courtyard: the scrape of wood on stone, a low chant, a shout. The pulse of the currents shifted in time with it. His tiny hands twitched, almost imitating the rhythm, almost learning it. The shimmer above him bent, following the echoes of his movements, curling like a ribbon responding to invisible strings.
A warmth pressed against him: his mother adjusting his tiny form. The currents bent again, folding around him, and he sensed—faintly, instinctively—the connection between the world outside, the shimmer, and his own responses.
It was overwhelming, terrifying, exhilarating. He could not act, could not comprehend, could not even form a thought. But in the smallest, most primitive way, he was beginning to notice order: patterns in the pulse, patterns in the colors, patterns in the unseen currents that pressed and pulled against his infantile body.
A flicker of gray stirred inside him—the part of his old self that remembered structure, rhythm, consequence. It brushed against the new, infantile body, faintly guiding the instinctive twitches, bending them toward repetition, toward harmony with the currents.
He did not know why he moved. He did not know what followed. He only felt that there was a reason, and he was part of it.
And in that fragile, fleeting recognition, Han-woo took the first conscious step toward understanding the world he had been thrust into: a world of rhythm, pulse, and Qi.
The shimmer coiled above him, responsive, teasing, alive—and for the first time, Han-woo's infantile awareness stretched just enough to notice that the chaos around him had rules.
And though he could not act on them yet, the spark had ignited.
The currents twisted again, brushing along his tiny limbs, curling around his chest, coiling lightly around his fingers. Han-woo flinched at the touch, startled, his body too small to resist, too weak to act. The colors above him—pale spirals, faint threads—shifted with each twitch, following his movements like reflections of some invisible mirror.
Yet even in helplessness, a rhythm began to emerge in his awareness. Not fully conscious, not something he could name, but a flicker of recognition: the currents moved in patterns. Each pulse repeated, each shimmer bent predictably after the last. Tiny muscles twitched in response, almost instinctively, almost imitating the motion of the world around him.
The sounds from beyond—the scrape of wood, the low hum of voices, distant clanging—layered on top of the currents. He could not identify them, could not reach or respond, yet his infant mind felt the connection. The chaos of the world outside pressed through the shimmer, folded into him, shaping the subtle threads of movement inside his tiny body.
His mother's presence was a constant guide. Her warmth, her careful adjustments, folded the currents softly, pressed the patterns gently toward him. Her hum aligned with the pulses, her shadow at the doorway bent the energy to follow his twitching limbs. And though he could not know it, the faint awareness of order was being impressed upon him.
Every twitch, every small kick, every flex of fingers and toes left tiny ripples in the currents. He was overwhelmed—so many colors, so many pulses, so many unseen forces—but beneath it all, a foundation was forming. Tiny, fragile, unformed, yet undeniable: this is how the world moves. This is the rhythm I must learn.
Gray lingered inside him, the echo of the life he had lived before. It pressed against the new spark of awareness, blending the past with the present. Helpless, tiny, shivering with fear and wonder, he began to sense a principle: that the world responded to him, that the currents bent to the rhythms he touched—even if he did not yet understand them.
The shimmer pulsed again, closer, brushing his infantile body. A spark ignited inside—a recognition without thought, a pattern without comprehension. Overwhelmed, frightened, unable to move with purpose, Han-woo's first conscious awareness of Qi had taken root.
It was faint. It was fragile. It was barely more than a twitch of instinct.
And yet it was enough.
The foundations were laid.
[1] I am Using “reader” because it creates a sense of closeness. The reader can perceive things that even the character might not fully notice yet.