The Basin woke early, because hunger never slept.
By the time Rat limped into the market street, the sun had barely cut through the haze. Stalls leaned crooked against one another, patched with sailcloth and wood scavenged from ruins. The air was thick with roasting barley, dried fish, and the smoke of cheap incense. Mortals shuffled about, haggling, arguing, trading scraps of copper and salt.
Rat's ribs still ached from the bullies' kicks, but at least he was breathing. The Codex's woven words hadn't lied. "Fall. Submit. Live." He had fallen. He had lived.
"Bread for a copper, porridge for half," a woman called, ladling watery oats. Her eyes skimmed past Rat. Everyone's did. Street rats weren't worth the effort unless they were stealing.
Rat slipped through the crowd, nose twitching at the smells. His stomach growled so loudly a passing butcher sneered at him.
"Oi, gutter boy," the butcher said, brandishing a cleaver. "Don't even look too hard. Meat's not for your kind."
Rat grinned, showing a tooth missing from last night. "Relax, uncle. You'd charge me double for the smell alone."
The man spat. Rat moved on before the cleaver followed.
He scrounged what he could: a bruised pear someone had dropped, a crust someone had thrown. The Basin's market was war fought with coins instead of blades, and mortals lost either way. Sects sent their collectors once a month, hauling away spirit herbs, jade fragments, even the faintest rumor of a Beast part. Mortals scrabbled over what remained.
Rat perched on the edge of a fountain, gnawing his pear. The water inside was brown, half dried. Statues of Immortals stood broken at its corners, their eyes hollow. A reminder that this was the Era of Mortals, not gods.
That was when he saw him.
The beggar.
Old, hunched, skin like bark. He sat against the cracked base of the fountain with a chipped bowl in his lap, fingering smooth stones as if they were pearls. His beard was a tangle of gray. His clothes were so ragged they made Rat look noble.
Yet the beggar breathed differently. Slow. Deep. As if every breath was a tide rolling in and out of the sea.
Rat squinted. "You're not even pretending to beg."
The beggar cracked one eye open. "Why would I? Stones feed me well enough." His voice was low, gravelly, but carried oddly far.
Rat snorted. "Stones don't feed anyone."
"Not anyone. Just me."
Rat was ready to dismiss him as another alley lunatic until he noticed the air. The beggar's breath stirred the dust. Threads of incense smoke from a nearby stall bent toward his nostrils and then away again, as if pulled.
Rat blinked. His old world brain whispered breathing exercise. His new world gut whispered Dao.
"What… are you doing?"
The beggar smiled without teeth. "Breathing properly. You breathe like a cornered rat. Fast. Desperate. That way, you only feed your fear."
Rat scowled. "That's my name, old man."
"Then perhaps you should learn a better breath."
He gestured lazily, like a fisherman showing how to cast a net. His chest expanded slow, impossibly slow. The inhale was endless, steady as a tide. The exhale poured out smooth, with no hitch. Even the wrinkles of his face seemed to soften.
Rat leaned forward, heart thudding. "You're cultivating."
Passersby turned to laugh. A fishmonger barked, "That runt? Cultivate? He'll choke on his own spit before he draws Qi."
Rat flushed, but he refused to look away from the beggar.
"Show me," he said.
The beggar chuckled. "It will hurt. It may kill you. But if your breath aligns, you may live long enough to starve another day. Sit."
Rat sat cross-legged right there on the stones, ignoring the stares. He mimicked the beggar's slow inhale, but immediately his chest seized. The air caught halfway, his ribs screamed, and he coughed until he spat blood into the dust.
Laughter roared around him. "Street rat thinks he's a sect disciple!"
"Look, he's cultivating filth!"
Rat wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Shut your rotting mouths," he muttered, but it only fed their jeers.
The beggar said nothing. He only breathed.
Rat tried again. The inhale came jagged. His body shook. The exhale wheezed. Pain lanced through his ribs like knives. He collapsed forward, hacking, tears stinging his eyes. The crowd laughed louder.
When Rat finally stumbled away, his pride was in tatters. His belly was emptier than before. The beggar remained, stroking his stones, unmoved.
That night, Rat climbed the worn steps of the old temple outside the market. No one prayed here anymore. The Immortal statues had been toppled long ago. Only the stars looked down now.
He sat, hugging his knees. Hunger gnawed him, but worse was the ache of failure. He had seen the beggar's breath bend smoke. That meant it was real. Not just madness. And if it was real, Rat couldn't walk away.
He tried again.
Inhale. Pain. His chest flared like it would split.
Exhale. His body spasmed, lungs rattling.
Again. And again.
Blood spotted his lips. His vision blurred. Each breath scraped like sandpaper down his throat. Still, he forced himself on.
The Codex shimmered into being. Threads of light wove pages above him, casting faint silver onto the temple steps.
[Attempt registered: Dao Breathing.]
[Warning: Your veins will crack, or your breath will align with the horizon.]
Rat swallowed hard. "Great. So either I die spitting blood, or… I don't."
He steadied himself. For once, he tried not to think like a rat. Not quick and twitching. Slow. Endless. He let his mind stretch, like the beggar's tide. He pictured the horizon, flat and steady, neither rushing nor ending.
The next inhale was different. Pain still seared, but beneath it, a warmth flickered in his belly. Small as a spark. Real.
His eyes flew open. The night sky wheeled above, stars cold and bright. His chest rose and fell, smoother than before. His blood still dripped on the steps, but the warmth didn't vanish.
The Codex rippled again.
[Codex of Strands of Fate – Status Update]
Vitality: 1
Qi Sense: 1
Comprehension: 1
Fate Entanglement: 3
Realm: Mortal Dust
Rat laughed weakly, the sound echoing across the empty courtyard. One tiny warmth in his belly. One number higher. That was nothing. That was everything.
Tomorrow, he swore, he would try again.